microsoft excel has encountered a problem and needs to close. we are sorry for the inconvenience.

First try a cold boot (turn the machine off and leave it off for a few minutes)
Then check if you have any add-ins installed and disable them one at a time:
Select the Tools | Add-ins menu option to bring up the list of installed add-ins.
PDFMaker is a common culprit, see this: http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00335.htm

You can also run Help, Detect & Repair from Excel & PowerPoint.

Checked the add-ins for both ppt and xls but adobe is not listed even though i have adobe 9 loaded and can see the adobe icon in the toolbar of both.  also searched for .ppa but no luck finding.  i did the repair of each and still no luck.....is reinstalling office the best thing (is outlook express part of office pro 2002?)  thanka

I'm almost positive it's Adobe 9.  Try uninstalling Adobe 9 and see if it makes a difference.

will do - but first here is a error msg from microsoft event tracker....is it possible that mso.dll is bad or that AVG - my antivirus is messing with it....
xls-error.gif

Uninstalled Adobe Acrobat 9 and still get excel error.

This is the best info I can find:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886264
It may be tied to the XP update.

I search the web and came across some registry issues....so i took a chance and did the following.  First with EXCEL - problem stopped.  Powerpoint did continue to error every other reboot.  Then i did Powerpoint - problem stopped.  It has been 2 days and several reboots and no problem.  I will be reloading Adobe 9 - will let you know if problem persits.

Open registry and locate
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\OLConnectorAddin.Connect
Change the key LoadBehavior from 3 to 0.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\PowerPoint\Addins\OLConnectorAddin.Connect
Change the key LoadBehavior from 3 to 0.

So the million dollar question - what did i do?  What is OLConnector and what does moving loadbehavior from 3 to 0 do?

It's the Microsoft Office Live Add-in.  You've told it not to load.

Thanks-well that appears to be the root of my problems.

You should be able to uninstall it through Control Panel.  The message you were getting is almost always an add-in.  The tricky part is determining which one.

I will do that - should i then reset the registry values back?  Also, any intrinsic value to MS Office Live?
Thanks again

Although the solution was not exact to the specific problem - it was on target and help was timely.  Thanks